Read the full story by Steve Smith, published by Dartmouth Alumni News 

Dr. Seuss’s 1990 classic Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is this year’s book for the National Education Association’s “Read Across America” day, celebrated annually on March 2, the anniversary of Theodor Seuss Geisel’s birth. Geisel, who graduated from Dartmouth in 1925, was born in 1904.

The book’s title, used to inspire millions of readers every year (especially during graduation season), originated at Dartmouth, according to English professor Donald Pease, the Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities.

Read more:

• Professor Donald Pease, Guardian of Dr. Seuss
• Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax is a Dartmouth Tale
• And to Think That It Happened at Dartmouth

In his 2010 biography, Theodor SEUSS Geisel, Pease wrote, “When he was a freshman at Dartmouth, the phrase, ‘Oh, the places you’ll go!’ served as the verbal equivalent to a handshake. After being pronounced by one student, it immediately evoked the response, ‘The people you’ll meet!’”